Consciousness: awareness and metacognition (General)

by dhw, Thursday, September 21, 2017, 13:14 (2618 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: If so, consciousness may be fundamental in nature—an inherent aspect of every mental process, not a property constituted or somehow generated by particular physical arrangements of the brain. Claims, grounded in subjective reports of experience, of progress toward reducing consciousness to brain physiology may have little—if anything—to do with consciousness proper, but with mechanisms of metacognition instead." (dhw’s bold)

DAVID’s comment: Exactly. Consciousness may be a mechanism we receive at birth. Some paragraphs are skipped which may help in following the discussion.

An awful lot of words to describe the obvious and absolutely vital fact that there are different levels of consciousness. My bold suggests panpsychism. Your agreement that consciousness may not be “generated by particular physical arrangements of the brain” is, of course, essential to your dualism, but also makes a mockery of your claim that brainless organisms cannot be conscious.